Technical Field
The present invention relates to a tire to be fitted to a rim and, in particular, to a tire in which at least a portion of a tire case is formed of a resin material.
Background Art
Conventionally, pneumatic tires constructed from rubber, organic fiber materials, steel members, and the like have been used in vehicles such as passenger cars. Regarding general rubber materials that are used for conventional pneumatic tires, there are no problems in terms of heat resistance and the like. However, the process for manufacturing a tire usually includes plural steps, for example, kneading, sheeting, molding, and vulcanization, and therefore, improvement in productivity has been required.
In regard to the above, recently, from the viewpoints of weight reduction, ease of molding, and ease of recycling, research has been conducted on the use of resin materials as the tire material; in particular, thermoplastic resins, thermoplastic elastomers, and the like. For example, Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2003-104008) indicated below and the like disclose a pneumatic tire which is formed using a thermoplastic polymer material. These thermoplastic polymer materials (thermoplastic resins) have a lot of advantages from the viewpoint of improvement in productivity, such as by enabling injection molding.
Further, a tire in which a polyamide-based thermoplastic elastomer is used as the thermoplastic polymer material has been proposed (see Patent Document 2 (JP-A No. 2012-46030)).